A strengthened reporting culture for MS Queensland

Multiple Sclerosis Society of Queensland (MS Queensland) is the first choice for MS information, education, treatment, care and support across Queensland. 

It is a registered non-profit organisation whose main goal is to ensure that people with MS and other neurological conditions are having their needs met and are getting the best out of life. They play a crucial role in quality control, advocating for change and searching for a cure. 

We recently spoke with Louise Pack, Health & Safety Business Partner at MS Queensland, to learn how the organisation is implementing two specific features that relate to the reporting and management of events in the LogiqcQMS platform: Business Rules and Controlled Actions.  

What is the purpose of reporting events in MSQ’s LogiqcQMS platform? 

Reporting is a requirement within the legislation to meet our duty, but for us, it’s also about the three Rs: Report, Review and Respond.  

By using the LogiqcQMS platform we can review those reports, look for trends and analyse how the responses worked. If it’s a problem across the board, we can decide whether pushing it out to all our sites would work. If it’s a one-off event, it gives us ideas on how to be proactive as far as education programs for our employees from their safety point of view, as well as from a customer safety point of view.  

What made you decide to activate the business rules and controlled actions features?

We work with people, so a lot of the reports have a medical nature. We wanted to make sure that we can lock them down to certain levels of management.  

One of the main problems we have is that big cases sometimes don’t come back to us for a couple of years from a legal point of view, so in that time pieces of paper and recollections can get lost.  

We also have a big variety of incidents and we need to make sure that all the necessary steps are followed. We wanted to improve the level of reporting we were getting from our staff and make it easier for new staff to report. 

Have these two features addressed these issues? 

Yes, definitely. For us, it’s been invaluable that all the information is there from the beginning. It is electronic, so it can’t get lost.  

We use the business rules to push the workflow, to make sure only the appropriate people get access, particularly if it’s quite a sensitive report.  

It helped us improve the level of reporting because the business rules make reporting easier for our staff. They can report with just a few clicks, which is a lot easier than finding the right form and filling in all the boxes. The margin of error in the reporting is also lower.  

We like the way the system is set up because it gives us good audit capabilities. The system’s history tracks any changes made to the initial report. This is invaluable when going through investigations or audits because if anyone was to question our records, we can easily prove what was initially loaded and the changes we made. 

Before using the LogiqcQMS platform and the business rules feature we relied on paper, which made reporting harder for new staff. They needed to find the correct paper form and sometimes they weren’t even sure whom they needed to pass it on to after completing it.  

A big part of that process is now built-in. They just have to say what has happened, fill in the right boxes and everything else will be filled in for them. They don’t need all that knowledge. It’s easier for new people to come on board, but it did require a bit of education for the people who were working on the old system. That was just literally because they were used to the old way.  

We use the business rules a lot within the organisation and the controlled actions only for notifiable incidents from a legal point of view. We have a wide variety of incidents, so the controlled actions are very useful to make sure all the necessary steps are followed. We are planning to incorporate more controlled actions further down the track. We need to get more than a year’s data behind us so we can review it and decide what steps can be put as controlled actions.     

How did you find the process of setting up the business rules?

It was easy because Logic provides a template to fill out with all the questions you need to note to build the business rules. Completing those templates made it very easy to set up. It was almost too easy! It is good to remember that you have to maintain those business rules, so you don’t want to make them bigger than Ben Hur. We have since streamlined some of the business rules that we initially placed in there.     

Given the importance MSQ places on its reporting culture, how have the business rules helped to strengthen the reporting culture? 

Having LogiqcQMS and using the business rules have absolutely helped to make the reporting culture stronger in our organisation.  

This is something that we needed to support and encourage. The reporting of customers’ issues is very obvious, but we needed to improve staff reporting of anything that happened to them. It was just in the “too hard” basket for them! But now it has definitely improved.  

Did MSQ experience any unexpected benefits in activating this feature? 

Some of our staff aren’t on site, they are spread out around Queensland. It makes it very accessible to them and very easy to lodge a report. For example, we recently had a roadside incident. A kangaroo hit the car and our staff was able to fill the report straight away. Ordinarily, she would have waited until coming back to the office, found the form and completed it. It would have been a much longer process. You don’t tend to get the same level of detail the longer it’s put off, so if they can do it on the roadside, perfect!       

For people at the office, it is also easier to report. If they have to run to pick up the kids or they don’t have enough time during their current shift, they can sit down when they have 5 minutes and do it at the end of the day.   

Finally, are there any learnings that you feel would be helpful to other organisations who are considering activating the Business Rules and/or the Controlled Actions for the reporting registers? 

I would especially like to mention two things. First of all, the business rules have provided our employees with increased trust in confidentiality and transparency. If they are reporting something that is not available for everyone to see, the business rules are in place to lock it down. That encourages them to be quite open in their reporting, they don’t hold back on detail.  

Secondly, remember that no matter how basic the rule is, it locks access to other fields within that rule. This means that you can’t edit individual reports to allow access to someone else. When we find an exception to the rule and need to grant access to someone else, we need to send them a notification with the incident number so that they can access the report.